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While it is a very necessary ingredient of a good shampoo, it will be found too harsh for general toilet use for persons with a delicate skin. Such persons should not attempt to use a liquid soap for toilet purposes other than as a shampoo. They should be advised to buy only a high grade toilet soap, free from excess of alkali, and in certain cases, even an unperfumed soap will be necessary.

Precipitation.-Liquid soaps if allowed to stand in a cool place will give a white precipitate. The amount of this precipitate depends directly upon the amount of stearate present, and is caused by crystallization of the stearates or acid stearates. It is generally redissolved if allowed to stand a few hours in a warm place. For this reason some persons may prefer to dispense liquid soaps in dark colored bottles.

Hardness of Water.-In different parts of the United States, different degrees of "hardness" of water are met with. For this reason, I propose to give three different formulas, in order that one may choose the one adapted to his particular locality. For instance the "Soft Water" formula contains plenty of cocoanut oil for such water as is found in the vicinity of Boston. The "Medium Hard Water" formula would be satisfactory for such water as found in the vicinity of Detroit, while a district like Kansas City would require the "Hard Water" formula.

The formulas I would suggest are as follows:

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Melt the stearic acid and oils together and add the caustic potash and soda dissolved in 1000 cc. soft water. Boil carefully, to avoid burning, adding more water as necessary, until no alkali is perceptible upon tasting. Then add the potassium carbonate dissolved in 250 cc. soft water and boil for two hours more. Allow to cool, add the alcohol and perfume if desired, and add sufficient soft water to make 2500 cc. Let stand three days, or longer if possible, add talc and filter through double filter-paper until clear.

Perfume. For cheap odors, oils of rose, geranium, sassafras, lavander, bergamot, caraway or citronella are good. Terpineol is also used, but is claimed by many to be irritating to the skin if used in too large a quantity.

For a pleasing, delicate odor of lilac character, I have found the following to be satisfatcory, this amount to be used to perfume 2500 cc. liquid soap of the above formula:

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Place in bottle and warm gently and shake until the musk dissolves.

Colors. Some may desire to color their Liquid Soap.

For Yellow-Use 1 grain Lieber's Deep Yellow No. 3003 to 2500 cc. Liquid Soap.

For Green-Use 1 grain Lieber's Vertoline Green No. 1855 to 2500cc. Liquid Soap. A darker green may be had by adding a trace of caramel.

Pine Tar Shampoo. Add about 10 grams of Pine Tar, dissolving this in the alcohol. The insoluble portion is removed when filtering, leaving a clear dark liquid which emits the tar odor strongly when used.

Conclusions. The above formulas make excellent appearing products. They produce an abundance of lather in all kinds of water, and when used as a shampoo, leave the hair light and fluffy. They contain no free caustic alkali, as an excess of fat over the amount of caustic alkali is used, and potassium carbonate is used to complete the saponification of the balance of the fat.

Do not expose liquid soaps to the cold as it causes precipitation of stearates. These will generally redissolve if the liquid is allowed to stand in a warm place.

Secret Remedies, Nostrums and Fakes.*

By W. S.

We hear a great deal these days of the high cost of living and the cause. I think we will all agree that there are a number of causes. I wish to point out one to you which you may not have thought of in that light before.

Those of you who read in your daily papers such articles as "How I Made My Hair Grow;" "The Model's Secret (A Story for Fat Folks);" "Don't Diet for Fat;" "The Doctors' Answers on Health and Beauty Questions;" "Beauty Hints;" "No More Wrinkles;" "Scranton Woman Makes Remarkable Discovery That Proves to be A Great Aid to Beauty." "Broad Minded and Liberal, she offers to give Particulars to all Who Write Absolutely Free." (Notice you write absolutely free.) And if you should write this woman you would obtain what to all appearance was a prescription from a specialist or perhaps a home remedy, but when you go to the drug store to obtain the ingredients you will find that one of them costs you at least five times and more than likely ten times more than any of the other ingredients. Take for instance "The Model's Secret;" "The cloak Models Association has raised their calling to the status of a fine art." "The development and retention of a perfect figure is made the study of their lives,

*Reprinted from the Fifteenth Report of the Michigan Academy of Science.

1913.

HUBBARD.

etc." Instead of dieting and exercise being their reliance the following mixture is asked to do the work of keeping these ladies professionally fit: ounce Marmola, ounce Fluidextract Cascara Aromatic and 3 ounces of peppermint water. To most people there is nothing wrong in the above and it is surprising how many people, mostly stout ones of course, are taken in by this and spend their good money for it. You will find when you buy the Marmola that it costs you $.75, the Cascara $.05 and the peppermint water not more than $.05. Marmola was one of the first of these placed on the market and made its appearance about twelve years ago, and by the way is made in Detroit, the city which makes more of this class of articles than any other city. Marmola is a mixture of phenolphthalein, dried thyroid gland, salt, bladder wrack and oil of peppermint.

Eppotone. "Discovered by a Parisian Specialist," sold as a skin food is nothing more than Epsom salts colored pink with carmine, four ounces sells for $.50 and you never think of paying more than $.10 a pound for epsom salts when you take it internally. This preparation is also made or I should say, put up, in Detroit. Spurmax is the same thing except that it is put up by a firm in Chicago.

A supposed remedy for locomotor ataxia is "Bioplasm" and upon analysis.

proves to be nothing more than milk sugar with a fancy price.

One which contains 98% sugar flavored with some balsams, two ounces of which sells for $5.00, is known as "Hydrocine." This, if one believed the literature, will cure tuberculosis. One of the worst fakes on the market is made at Jackson and known as "Lung Germine." It is composed of alcohol 44%, sulphuric acid 4% and water 52%. Price $5.00 for two ounces. This, too, is sold to cure tuberculosis in the last stage.

colored with an aniline dye, to give the yellow appearance, others are baking powder, containing of course starch, and one or two have been found which contain casein, an attempt you see to furnish something to supply the albumin. Why you can go down here anywhere and buy ten ounces of baking powder for ten cents and sour milk is not very costly.

I wish to call your attention to just one more compound on the market, SalVet. You may have seen the large ad in the evening paper lately. It gives the endorsement of many Michigan farmers. It is a stock conditioner and worm destroyer and as they say, "will destroy stomach and intestinal parasites and prevents infection from all parasites that enter the stomach." Sal-Vet they say is a wonderful medicated salt and they tell you to feed no salt. A very good reason for that for Sal-Vet is 93.5% common, ordinary salt with small amounts of iron sulphate and charcoal with indeterminable amounts of gentian, quassia and sulphur or in other words about enough to cover its identity. It sells for $5.00 a hundred pounds, rather expensive it seems to me for common salt and especially for stock. If we can believe it to be used as extensively as they claim, then is there any wonder the price of meat is high?

The ones I have already spoken of have been on the market for some time, but there is a beauty preparation which has been at its height the past year known as "Mercolized Wax." I am told that here in Ann Arbor there are as many of the men students using it as there are Co-eds. Some of the reading notices say in speaking of powder and paint, "How foolish to seek artificial beauty of this sort, obnoxious from artistic and moral standpoint, when it so easy to obtain a truly natural complexion by the use of ordinary mercolized wax." The only real way to improve a bad complexion is to actually remove it and let the young fresh, beautiful skin beneath have a chance." This preparation proves to be an ointment containing 11% zinc oxide and 8.5% ammoniated mercury and sells for $.75 an ounce. The cost of manufacture is not more than $.75 per pound. Ammoniated mercury is considered as a rather dangerous and irritating drug if left in contact with the skin very long disobeying the bass-fishing law, the game long or applied very frequently. It is often used in skin diseases such as "Barber Itch," eczema, etc. Most of these preparations are harmless, except in price, however, "Mercolized Wax" cannot be classed with the harmless. Another of the harmful kind is "Othine," two and

ounces of which sells for $2.00. This preparation is guaranteed to remove. freckles or money refunded and it will do it too, but it does it by taking the skin along and of course the freckles return too. This preparation we have found to be ammoniated mercury and bismuth.

There is in Ann Arbor at the present time an agent for Robt. Blumers Egg Saver. It is a quarter pound package selling for $.25 and is claimed to be the equivalent of four dozen eggs. We have examined this and several other so-called "egg savers." Some are corn starch

Staked Out.

To make sure that the youngster was not

warden took his string of fish out of the water and found only cat-fish, perch, and suckers on the line. A few feet further down the stream he found a large black bass wiggling on a string weighed down with a stone and asked the boy what he was doing with the fish.

"Well, you see," answered the boy, "he's been taking my bait all morning and so I just tied him up there until I got through fishing." -National Food Magazine.

A farmer in a great need of extra hands at haying time finally asked Si Warren, who was accounted the town fool, if he could help him out.

“What'll ye pay?” asked Si.

"I'll pay what you're worth," asnwered the farmer.

Si scratched his head a minute, then announced decisively:

"I'll be durned if I'll work for that!" -Everybody's.

Of General Interest -:

Latin Made Optional in Pharmacy

Course in England.

A decision was taken the other day by the council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Birtain which some people will probably lament as a sign of the decadent times in which we live, and which may well exercise a far-reaching effect on the professional future of the pharmacist. In În plain English, Latin has been set aside as a compulsory subject for the society's preliminary examination. Medical men, no less than pharmacists of the old school, will regret the change, yet it is believed that in taking the new departure they have decided upon the governing body of the profession has merely yielded to the trend of the age. For a long time, it appears, the whole system of examinations has been under consideration, and a step like the present, it is suggested, was bound to come sooner or later.

It seems a pity to have to admit it, yet it is a fact that many pharmacists will tell you academic Latin, the Latin of the schools, is of comparatively little use to the aspiring pharmaceutical chemist, on the ground that it bears no great relationship to the Latin of the medical prescription, in which, of course, the student is bound to qualify before he finally passes into the profession. In view, therefore, of the relative extent to which the clas

sics are being dropped in many schools nowadays, in order that more attention. may be given to the commercial side of education it was realized that so long as Latin was retained as a compulsory subject in the preliminary examination many otherwise suitable candidates for the profession found their entrance pretty well barred.

Wherefore the council have removed Latin from the category of compulsory subjects. Formerly the candidate was compelled, among other things, to take a modern foreign language in his preliminary examination, but that, too, has been dispensed with. At the same time, the council advise candidates to take Latin as one of the two optional subjects which the regulations prescribe.

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There is some reason for thinking that the operation of the Insurance Act may have had something to do with the new departure. Whatever may be said about the remuneration the Act has brought to the pharmaceutical chemist, it has certainly put in his way a great deal of dispensing work which was formerly done by the doctors themselves. As a result, a shortage of assistants has revealed itself; and accordingly it is felt that changes just made in the preliminary examination may have been made in order to invite a greater flow of candidates into the profession.

One influence the abolition of academic Latin in the curriculum of the qualifying pharmacist is almost bound to have. It will raise the question whether medical men should continue to write their prescriptions in Latin at all. Might they not just as well be written in the vernacular? But, on the other hand, would it be well for the patient himself that he should know precisely the nature of the drugs which his medical man has prescribed for him? There might easily be room for difference of opinion on that matter. The doctors, or a section of them, it would seem, would not willingly see the time honored Latin prescription relegated to the limbo of discarded things.

Perpetual Registration for Pharmacists.

By WM. L. B. BRITTAIN, Norwood, O. A petition is in circulation in this State to the effect that Certificates of Registration be issued for life-terms.

At first glance, this departure appears to be very desirable, and upon that hypothesis many pharmacists have appended their signatures, who probably would not have done so, had the broad possibilities of such a step been considered.

What are the motives behind this movement? Who are its sponsors? And why is it agitated upon the eve of probable "prerequisite" legislation?

The petition obviously portends the seeking of legislation favorable to the

intent of the petition. The Board of Pharmacy would be vitally effected. It is maintained almost entirely by renewal fees, supplied by the owners of certificates of registration. Would such legislation be inimical to the Board?

There seems to be no necessity for a law of this kind. It would lessen supervision, increase unscrupulous competition, and likely be susceptible to an eleventh hour amendment by outside. interests.

A grander opportunity could not be deserved by the unregistered owners of drug stores to come in with the flood, and obtain a certificate by virtue of having been in business a certain length of time. Life registration might be a good thing if accompanied by requirements for a Bertillion record, finger prints and all.

I am opposed to any more patchwork upon a code of Pharmacy Laws, most of which is a relic of frontier times, when the great State of Ohio, was the "far West." What we need is an entire new set, which will more accurately reflect present-day

conditions.

The terms of existence of a certificate is not in need of regulation. It should be more relevant to endeavor to restrict to qualified persons, the somewhat vague privileges granted by this certificate, thus reducing the encroachments of unqualified persons to a minimum.

To digress a little, licensing of pharmacists themselves, as 1st and 2nd class, is extremely desirable: 1st class if operated by registered proprietors and 2nd class if owned by unregistered persons or corporations. In this way licenses might be refused applicants contemplating the opening of stores in such close proximity to others, as to pander toward unscrupulous and destinctive competition. In returning to the subject matter, I want to say, that, while there may be ample argument in favor of perpetual registration. I confess that I can see none more important than that the pharmaceutical profession merely deserves to be placed upon an equality with medicine, dentistry and law.

Yet, the conditions prevailing in these professions are not at all identical with those in Pharmacy. Perpetual registration would necessarily provide for the exchange of all certificates in force, for a life certificate upon the payment of a stipulated fee. Consequently many life certificates would be obtained by persons

who have left pharmacy (for more fertile fields) during its period of adversity, not neglecting, however, to unlawfully renew their certificates at expiration from time to time. I am opposed to sharing at any time in the future, the benefits which are likely to accrue through the efforts of our organizations and the individual members. thereof. The men who have evaded the issue and escaped from the scene of conflict (for it has been and still is a conflict) are entitled to nothing. Whatever has been gained and whatever is to be gained belongs only to those who have fought; aye, and bled, for the cause. I am opposed to life registration until such time as pharmacies shall be State or Federal institutions.

Communications.

Cincinnati, O., Dec. 15, 1913.
The Midland Publishing Company,
Columbus, Ohio.
GENTLEMEN:

Answering yours of the 13th inst., would say that I do not believe myself sufficiently informed to express an opinion on the proposed Amendment of the Pharmacy Law to make registration of Pharmacists perpetual. However, I can say, that if it be the intention to relieve the Board of Pharmacy of practically all supervision, after a person has become registered as a Pharmacist, then this in my judgment is altogether wrong. If on the other hand, it is the intention to substitute for the present method of re-registration a method under which Pharmacies must be registered annually, in place of requiring re-registration on the part of those who hold Pharmacist Certificates, then this no doubt would present some valuable features. To discard the present method of re-registration and not to at the same time replace it with some other method for having a record of those who are actually engaged in conducting Pharmacies, seems undesirable.

As stated, I am not sufficiently informed to speak more fully regarding the effort which is being made at the present time, but I fail entirely to understand in that connection the activity of the Inspectors of the Drug Department of the Agricultural Commission. Why should they be interested in circulating such petition? I sincerely trust that it is not the aim to further cripple the Board of Pharmacy. Very truly yours,

FRANK H. FREERICKS.

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